


(i feel) unsteady

by nonbinarywithaknife (littleboxes)



Series: me sobbing about critical role [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (both for veth after the goblins and yeza), Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Flashbacks, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Torture, but then everyone's happy, goblins are not nice, the major character death is for yeza remembering veth's death, yeza is NOT having a good time right now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 09:50:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17640479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleboxes/pseuds/nonbinarywithaknife
Summary: Yeza knew the work he'd been doing was taking a toll. He hadn't thought he'd completely lost his mind. Not until he hears a voice in his head, in the dark, telling him things that cannot, cannot be true.





	(i feel) unsteady

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this without editing and while listening to "unsteady" by the x ambassadors. this was inspired by a text post by @kimabutch on tumblr, + @jabletown's addition (http://jabletown.tumblr.com/post/182511816808/kimabutch-you-know-given-everything-thats). i have lots of yeza feelings, all of which are probably going down the drain once we actually meet him but, eh. here u go:

Ever since he’d been approached (threatened) by the Assembly to work on that… _thing_. Yeza had known he’d been stressed. It was stressful, having two of the most powerful beings in the Empire breathing down his neck for results. But. It had been a year since- since Veth. Luke had started to open up again, little by little, and Yeza didn’t flinch when he thought he saw brown braids and a freckled smile in a crowd anymore. They were healing slowly. But then the package comes. It’s simple, wrapped in brown paper, brought by an out of breath courier.

At first Yeza thinks maybe it’s just some chemicals he forgot he ordered. Then he sees the buttons. The dolls, and the coins, and he just. Freezes. Hears a laugh in the back of his mind, smells the flowers and hears the rushing of a river as he kisses his wife for the first time. There’s no letter. He doesn’t know who it’s from, and Veth’s dead. Dead. He’d pulled her body from the river himself, seen the marks that the goblins made (because he wasn’t fast enough) (and Veth, had known, had run, yelled “I love you” one last time and then-)

So Yeza folds up the package and hides it. Under the floorboards under his bed, because he can’t bring himself to throw it away. And Luke, who’s so _smart_ and so _young_ asks him who the package is from. And Yeza smiles, strained, and says “just, someone.” Then the next one comes. And this time- there’s a letter. Gods, the _letter_ . The first time he reads it, he falls to his knees and is so, so glad he sent Luke to Edith’s for the day. Because, gods, he doesn’t know who would pull this kind of joke, but they’re sick. (And Yeza doesn’t think about the little spark of hope that had kindled when he’d seen the box of trinkets, doesn’t think about how much he wants this to be true, because he can’t get his hopes up, can’t get _Luke’s_ hopes up, and he pulled her body from the river it can’t be-)

Yeza hides this one under the floorboards too, and Luke comes back, and, occasionally when the stress and paranoia of working with that horrible beacon gets to be _too much_ (he wasn’t made for this, he’s just an alchemist, just a father, he’s _not meant for this_ ) He takes out the letter and the trinkets, and the buttons, and doesn’t think about the little spark of hope in the back of his mind.

And then the Cricks come, and burn down his (their, it was theirs, he couldn’t have built the apothecary without Veth, he’d never wanted to operate it without her-) apothecary, and he hears his son scream, and gods, please, he can’t lose him, he already lost Veth (at least it wasn’t a river this time, but he doesn’t know if fire is worse-) he can’t lose his light, his star, his smart, _smart_ boy.

They tie his hands and make him walk. They walk back through tunnels made by a beast and Yeza can’t remember the feel of sunlight on his skin anymore. He hopes that Luke is alive (that Veth is alive) but it’s so hard to hope in the maddening darkness. It’s been weeks, he thinks, when he notices the ground is sloping up. They leave the tunnels, but the darkness follows them.

At first, he thinks it’s a hallucination, that his eyes have finally failed him (Veth used to tease him about his glasses, how he’d probably go blind and she’d have to lead him about, and he’d always say “I’d follow you anywhere,” and she’d blush and stutter and he’d kiss her nose, because she’d always hated it for being crooked but he loved every bit of her, crooked or not-) but the Cricks don’t say anything and he’s too afraid to speak.

A couple of days after their exit from the tunnels, Yeza hears a voice in the back of his head. It takes all of his self control not to flinch violently, but even then, it’s close. And then, he processes the words. And that little spark of hope flares, and he can’t stop it- it’s a trick, it has to be, _he pulled her body out of the river_ . He leans back against the rough wall and thinks, _I’ve finally snapped_.

Anyone would’ve, he reasons. Surely even the stoutest halfling wouldn’t be expected to stay sane throughout everything he’s been put through. The next night, he hears the voice again, and he despairs for his sanity, because he _knows_ that Veth is dead, and he can’t, _can’t_ get his hopes up.

More days pass, though Yeza can’t tell exactly how many. Nearly every night, he hears the voice in the back of his head. Telling him to have hope. That they’re (someone) is coming for him. That his wife misses him. And, slowly, that little flicker of hope grows, until it’s a roaring fire, but he can’t- he needs to _see_ her. To know that he hasn’t gone mad, that the darkness (and the other things, but he doesn’t think about those, they hurt enough in the moment) haven’t driven him past insanity.

Then, one day, he hears a commotion. Down the hall, he hears the frantic yelling in a language he can’t understand but recognizes as his captors’. Unfamiliar voices shouting, the sounds of battle. The door to his cell is thrown open by a tall, tan human woman. She’s covered in blood and clearly injured. She zeros in on him immediately, speaks in a rough voice- “Yeza?”

He can only stare, shocked, before finally nodding. She turns back outside and yells something- names? And more beings flood the room. A tall half-orc. A blue tiefling woman. A very tall, furred person with pink hair. A dirty human man. And- and a short figure, couched in shadow. They’re all talking, but he can’t hear them past the rushing in his ears.  His breath hitches.

“Veth?” He speaks before he even realizes. The talking stops, and the taller people slowly exit, leaving him and- the figure steps forward. He sees the braids, first. Thick, brown, and messy, tied with whatever was at hand at the moment. Her tan skin covered in freckles. But something’s wrong (he pulled this body out a river, cold, and covered in bruises and blood-)

“Yeza-,” her voice breaks, “I- something happened. The goblins, they, they did something, and that’s why I couldn’t come home. I’m so sorry,  _so_ sorry, I wanted to come back right away, but-,” and then the spell drops. He sees a goblin in front of him. But- he sees the way her shoulders hunch, and the wilted flowers in her hair, and the sound of her voice (the voice he thought he’d never hear again, that screamed “I love you” desperately as she ran away-).

“ _Veth?_ ” And he stumbles forward, desperate to touch, to make sure that he really isn’t dreaming, because he knows his wife, knows her better than anyone else, and green skin and claws or not, he _knows her_.

She lets out a sob (Veth, his wife, his flower, not floating in a river but standing in front of him, _real_ ) as he wraps his arms around her and just breathes, deeply, desperately for a second. “Oh, gods, Veth, I kept hearing a voice, and I thought I’d gone mad, and, and, I didn’t want to hope because I pulled you out of a _river_ , _Veth_ , I missed you so _much_ -”

Later, he cries, when she tells him that Luke is alive, that he and Edith are safe with a Lawmaster in Alfield. Then, she tells him her story, and he can tell that she’s expecting him to reject her. (Veth has never seen herself the way he sees her, so bright and loud and beautiful, full of passion and life-,) So he reaches out and tells her, how when he’d gotten the letter he was so afraid to hope, to get Luke’s hopes up, because he didn’t know if they could handle losing her again.

Even later, after they both cry, he meets the rest of them. Jester, the source of the voice in his head, who he can see is such a good friend to Veth. Beau, a monk who’s smile is more like a grimace (paired with the blood and the bruises, it’s quite unsettling, actually) but who has a steadfast affection in her voice as she talks about the others. Fjord, the half orc, and Caduceus, the furry being that Yeza still can’t place.

Yasha is tall, quiet, and pale, but Caleb is the last one to introduce himself. Yeza sees the look on Veth’s face as she looks at him, it’s the same look she used to use with Luke, and suddenly, he knows. She looks like that at all of them, this mismatched group, and he smiles as he realizes that this really is his Veth, with the same heart full to bursting with love.

**Author's Note:**

> edit I/ thank you all for the wonderful comments!! i read them all and i really appreciate all the lovely sentiments <3  
> edit II/ smoke and mirrors by the imagine dragons really captures his headspace if u listen to it while reading   
> edit 4/3/19 for readability/formatting


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